So. The food thing.

It appears that I have an anonymous person who has left a few comments to some of my posts that doesn't quite grasp my literary devices when speaking about 1) outrage and 2) food. Ahhh! The beauty of the Internet! Say anything you want, and nobody has to know who you are!

Yeah, I use a little bit of hyperbole on occasion - I didn't *actually* see "red" when I saw that DirecTV satellite, you know? But that's my personality, so that's the way I write.

But anyway, the real problem for them seems to be the food thing. After all, I *did* have bariatric surgery, so of course I am completely banned from anything good tasting ever again, because of course I'll just gain back all my weight after the honeymoon period when everybody loses weight is over because I'll just keep eating like a pig, right?

I'm not about to kid myself that all of the choices I make are going to wise all the time, but they *do* fit into the eating plan that my surgeon gave me to follow. The idea goes something like this: Push that protein, get in those vitamins, suck down the water. Then if you have room left, sure, have a tiny bite or two of something carb-ish or desert-ish.

For example, today, when I could actually plan out my food, I had yogurt supplemented with some protein powder, approximately 6 slices of turkey breast lunchmeat and 3 slices of provolone cheese (wrap the cheese around two slices of turkey) split into two different meals. For dinner tonight, I will have one or two pork ribs. Total water consumption throughout the day should equal about 80 ozs. This is a normal day, although the pork ribs are kind of a treat.

At the Magic Kingdom this weekend, I was not able to plan things out, so of course, my choices suffered. But the beauty of the DS is that it is forgiving when you make these slip-ups (unless they create bathroom issues, which doesn't seem to happen to me. Yet). Then again, I don't think that an inch or so of a churro, two small bites of peach cobbler and a sniff and a tiny nibble of chocolate spread out over four days qualifies as a major deviation from the eating plan I am going by.

But what about the rest of what I ate, you say? Well, here ya go:

• Pizza. Delicious toppings it had. Goat cheese, pecorino cheese, mozarella and a few others I can't remember. Thick sliced pepperoni. Splendid! The crust? Honestly, I don't know. Didn't eat it. Ate too much cheese and pepperoni to fit any in. The Husband said it was damn good, though. He ate five pieces.
• Sandwiches. I didn't feel like dealing with possible gas issues, so I took off the bread and ate the lunchmeat and cheese inside. Very tasty.
• Corn dog. Way too thick of a breading, so that's gotta go. Don't want to eat that anyway. Looks like it will give me nasty gas. The dog inside was too spicy for me to eat more than a few nibbles. Scratch that lunch.
• Fish and Chips. Very good cod. Lightly breaded so I didn't need to tear any off. The chips? Well, not so good, which is why I chose the smallest ones on the plate to nibble on after I had my fill of cod.
• In-N-Out Burger. Seeing as how this chain is the best in quality if you're going to pick fast food, I have no heartache with this choice at all. I avoided the bun entirely, and only managed to eat between 1/2 to 2/3rds of the cheeseburger. No room for their fries, though, and I didn't mind their absence.

I know that other people feel very passionately about how you should eat after any type of bariatric surgery. And believe me, I understand and share many of their sentiments. Protein will always be my major focus whenever I eat from now on. Come to think of it, it was that way before surgery as well. I always prefered my meat before I prefered my potatoes - but then I usually went overboard when it came to dishing out my potatoes, and that is what got me in the place I was at before surgery.

Here's the bottom line. I didn't have surgery to punish myself. I've already done that and failed beyond my wildest dreams - but now I have a tool that can help me enjoy life and eating again (even though it's within limits) and still get down to a normal weight and maintain it. My surgeon has made darned sure to impress this mindset upon me whenever I have spoken with him.

I'm supposed to be able to learn how to make smart choices when ordering from the menu - because one reason why I chose the DS is to make sure that I can order from the menu. I don't care that it may look a bit wierd with me picking my toppings off my pizza with a fork, eating everything but the bread on a sandwich, completely ignoring whole sections of food of my plate, or making the waiter or waitress ask me if everything was okay with the food because I only ate about 10 percent of what was put in front of me. It's fine with me, because in the end I'm eating for me and my continued health, not someone else's.

Everyone makes their choices in this life. These are the ones I chose for me. It doesn't make me right, and it doesn't make me wrong. It's the choices that will shape me into who I want to be.

The Husband has begun teasing me that I'm a cheap date now because of the amount I eat. That's fine with me. I'd rather be his cheap date than someone else's expensive eating machine any day of the year.